Shaping input current in power supplies to have a waveform close to a sinusoidal waveform has the potential of reducing or eliminating undesirable harmonics and of increasing power factor. Power factor in power converters is defined as the ratio of the real power delivered to the load to the apparent power provided by the power source. Regardless of what topology is used in the power converters, power converters should be able to deliver power from the power source to the load with a high power factor and low harmonic distortion. This is because utility companies or government agencies require power factors in power converters to exceed a certain minimum level by regulation.
There were a number of attempts at providing power converters with high power factors. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,751,561 to Ho et al. discloses an AC-to-DC power converter that purports to achieve greater than 0.8 power factor correction with greater than 75 percent efficiency using only one power switch, only one magnetic component, only one control loop, and a storage capacitor. U.S. Pat. No. 5,991,172 to Jovanovic et al. also discloses a single stage, single switch flyback converter, in which the turn-on switching losses due to the discharge of the output capacitance of the switch are reduced by turning on the switch when its voltage is minimal. The fly-back converter stage is continuously operated at the boundary of continuous conduction mode (CCM) and discontinuous conduction mode (DCM) by employing a variable frequency control. Furthermore, U.S. Pat. No. 6,038,146 to Luo et al. also discloses an AC-to-DC power converter with high power factor and which minimizes the input charging current flowing through the separate inductor by locating a separate inductor between a full-bridge rectifier and the transformer but out of the storage capacitor's current path.
In general, the power converters in these patents achieve power factor correction by providing one current shaper inductor along with a transformer and a bulk capacitor for storage of energy. These conventional power converters may work well in a given range of input voltage levels, but none of these conventional power converters can deliver electrical power with high power factors over a broad or full range of input voltage. Because the conventional power converters typically operate in a single mode (such as DCM or CCM) over the entire range of input voltage, they have high power factor over a certain range of input voltage in which they were designed to operate but have low power factor in other ranges of input voltage.
Accordingly, conventional power converters typically use two closed feedback loops. One closed feedback loop is used for regulating the output voltage to a desired level, and the other closed feedback loop is used for controlling the amplitude of the input current. The implementation of these conventional power converters requires complex circuitry further requiring considerable efforts to stabilize them. Furthermore, the conventional power converters have a particular topology, but none of the control strategy for these conventional power converters may be used with different topologies of power converters.
Therefore, there is a need for a power converter that can deliver electrical power from a power source to a load with a shaped input current over a wide range of input voltage. There is also a need for a power converter that can be implemented by non-complex circuitry. There is also a need for a power converter that can ensure that the input current to the power converter is precisely shaped to a desired reference waveform. Finally, there is a need for a method and system compatible with different topologies of power converters for providing power factor correction over a wide range of input voltage.